No. 97 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Counselor
When we do not know which way to turn, there is One whose counsel reaches beyond every human limitation.
I call on Thee O Unfastener, O Counselor, O Deliverer! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
Plain meaning · Counselor
1. One who counsels; an adviser. Can he that speaks with the tongue of an enemy be a good counselor, or no Shak. 2. A member of council; one appointed to advise a sovereign or chief magistrate. Note: [See under Consilor.] 3. One whose profession is to give advice in law, and manage causes for clients in court; a barrister. Good counselors lack no clients. Shak.
Definition from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain). When these Writings were translated into English, the translator relied on Webster's New International Dictionary, 1934 edition, of the same Webster's tradition. source
What “The Counselor” means
The meaning above is the plain dictionary definition of the word. What follows reflects on it as a name of God, offered for your own contemplation, and not as an authoritative interpretation of the Bahá'í Writings, which rests with ‘Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi alone.
The word 'counselor' carries a particular kind of intimacy. A counselor is not simply someone who knows the answer, a counselor is someone who sits with you in the difficulty, understands the full shape of your situation, and then speaks a word that orients you. To address God as The Counselor is to acknowledge that there is a wisdom available to us that no specialist, no committee, and no algorithm can fully replicate. It is the wisdom that holds all causes and all consequences in view at once.
In many traditions, counsel has been regarded as one of the great gifts that can flow from a higher source into human life, the kind of inner knowing that clarifies confusion, steadies panic, and opens a path that was not visible a moment before. When Bahá'u'lláh invokes this name alongside others such as Unfastener and Deliverer, it suggests something dynamic: a God who is not passively available but actively engaged in guiding those who turn toward Him. The Counselor is not an impersonal force but a presence that can be meaningfully addressed, as the prayer itself so beautifully models.
There is also a gentle humility embedded in this name for those who call upon it. To seek counsel is to admit that your own understanding is incomplete. It is the opposite of insisting you already know what healing should look like or how it must arrive. Approaching God as The Counselor opens a space of genuine listening, an orientation of the heart that many who have sat with serious illness, grief, or confusion describe as one of the most quietly transformative things they have ever done.
Calling on The Counselor for healing
When you are facing an illness, your own or someone you love, the noise of uncertainty can be overwhelming. Which treatment? Which physician? Which path forward? Calling on God as The Counselor in the Long Healing Prayer is one way of bringing that overwhelm into a different kind of conversation. It is not a substitute for seeking qualified medical care; quite the opposite, it can be the inner steadying that helps you ask better questions, weigh options more clearly, and stay present with difficult decisions. Many people find that regular prayer creates a kind of interior quiet in which practical wisdom, whether their own or a doctor's, can actually be heard.
It is worth holding gently the understanding that healing, in its deepest sense, may move along unexpected paths. The Counselor's wisdom is not limited to the outcome we have fixed upon. Sometimes what we most need is not the resolution we imagined but the courage, clarity, or acceptance to meet what is actually unfolding. Turning to this name in prayer is an act of trust, not passive resignation, but an active opening of the will to a guidance larger than our own. Whatever the outcome, that turning itself can carry a real and sustaining grace.
Also sought as: the counselor in the long healing prayer · divine counselor bahai prayer · god as counselor healing prayer · bahai name of god counselor · lawh-i-anta'l-kafi the counselor · counselor name of god bahai · seeking divine guidance through bahai prayer · spiritual counsel in times of illness · names of god in bahai healing prayer · unfastener counselor deliverer healing prayer.
Living the Word
Applying The Counselor in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Counselor being asked of you right now, and how will you practice it? Keep a short note each time you return, and watch your own path with this name take shape over time. It stays on this device.
In the Bahá'í Writings
“15.3O handmaid of God! The prayers which were revealed to ask for healing apply both to physical and spiritual healing. Recite them, then, to heal both the soul and the body. If healing is right for the patient, it will certainly be granted; but for some ailing persons, healing would only be the cause of other ills, and therefore wisdom doth not permit an affirmative answer to the prayer. 15.4O handmaid of God! The power of the Holy Spirit healeth both physical and spiritual ailments. Acquiring Divine Virtues”
Read in full at bahai.org →“‘Say, all is from God’ is a sound and sufficient argument, and ‘if God toucheth thee with a hurt there is no dispeller thereof save Him’ is a healing medicine.””
Read in full at bahai.org →“God Is the Great Compassionate Physician Who Alone Gives True Healing October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastric malady. Avicenna was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing. All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Counselor
- Why is God called 'The Counselor' in the Long Healing Prayer?
- The name reflects the understanding that God possesses a complete and perfect wisdom, one that encompasses our physical, emotional, and spiritual condition in ways no human advisor can fully match. Invoking this name in prayer is an act of consciously turning toward that wisdom, especially when facing the confusion and fear that often accompany illness. It positions the one praying as a seeker of guidance rather than a demander of a specific outcome.
- Does calling on The Counselor mean I should not see a doctor?
- Not at all. Bahá'í teachings consistently affirm that material ailments call for material remedies, and consulting competent physicians is both sensible and encouraged. Turning to God as The Counselor in prayer and seeking skilled medical care are complementary, not competing, responses to illness. Many people find that prayer and professional medical care support each other in the healing process.
- How is divine counsel different from human advice?
- Human advisors, however knowledgeable, work with incomplete information and are subject to their own limitations and blind spots. The concept of God as The Counselor points to a wisdom that holds the whole of a situation, past, present, and future, body and spirit together, in perfect clarity. This does not mean divine counsel arrives in dramatic or obvious ways; many people describe it as a quiet clarification, a settled sense of direction, or an unexpected opening that appears in the course of sincere prayer and reflection.
- Can this name be used in personal prayer outside the formal text of the Long Healing Prayer?
- While the Long Healing Prayer itself is a revealed text with its own integrity and power, there is nothing that prevents a person from meditating on this name of God, holding it in mind during difficulty, or addressing God by it in personal supplication. Reflecting on what it means that God is The Counselor can itself be a form of prayer, a way of reorienting the heart toward a wisdom greater than one's own fears or certainties.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer