No. 71 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Desired One
At the heart of every prayer lies a hidden question: what do we truly want, and who is it that we are, at last, reaching toward?
I call on Thee O Well-guarded One, O Lord of Joy, O Desired One! 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 · Desired
from “desire”: 1. To long for; to wish for earnestly; to covet. Neither shall any man desire thy land. Ex. xxxiv. 24. Ye desire your child to live. Tennyson. 2. To express a wish for; to entreat; to request. Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord 2 Kings iv. 28. Desire him to go in; trouble him no more. Shak. 3. To require; to demand; to claim. [Obs.] A doleful case desires a doleful song. Spenser. 4. To miss; to regret. [Obs.] She shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies. Jer. Taylor. Syn.
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 Desired One” 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.
To call God 'The Desired One' is to name something that most of us feel before we can explain it, a pull, a longing, an ache that ordinary things never quite satisfy. Philosophers and mystics across many traditions have noticed this: that human beings seem constituted for a love whose object they cannot always identify. The name 'The Desired One' suggests that this unnamed longing is not a confusion or a flaw in us. It points somewhere real. It points to God.
There is something quietly humbling about this name. It does not picture God primarily as a judge, a lawgiver, or even a creator, though God is surely all of those. It pictures God as the One we have been wanting all along, the destination our hearts have been navigating toward even when we thought we were searching for something else entirely. To use this name in prayer is to admit that the restlessness we carry has a source, and that the source can be found.
The name also carries warmth. Desire, when it is noble, is a kind of love in motion, something reaching outward. To address God as 'The Desired One' is to bring that motion into the open, to let longing become conscious prayer. It transforms a vague spiritual hunger into a direct encounter, a turning of the whole self toward the One it was made to seek.
Calling on The Desired One for healing
When illness or suffering strips away the routines we depend on, it has a way of exposing what is underneath, and sometimes what is underneath is a very old longing that we have never quite addressed. Calling on God as 'The Desired One' in those stripped-down moments can be a way of meeting that longing honestly. It is not a technique for summoning relief. It is more like an acknowledgment: that beneath the fear, beneath the pain, there is something in us that is oriented toward God, and that orientation itself is a form of healing already underway.
People who use the Long Healing Prayer often find that its power is as much about the quality of attention it cultivates as about any single line. Resting on this particular name, The Desired One, can gently shift the inner posture from anxious petition to something more like love. That shift does not guarantee a particular medical outcome; for that, competent physicians and appropriate care remain essential partners. But the soul has its own needs alongside the body's, and turning toward the One we most deeply desire may offer a steadiness that holds us through whatever healing looks like for us in any given season of life.
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Living the Word
Applying The Desired One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Desired One 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
“We must strive to attain to that condition by being separated from all things and from the people of the world and by turning to God alone. It will take some effort on the part of man to attain to that condition, but he must work for it, strive for it. We can attain to it by thinking and caring less for material things and more for the spiritual. The further we go from the one, the nearer we are to the other. The choice is ours. Our spiritual perception, our inward sight must be opened, so that we can see the signs and traces of God’s spirit in everything. Everything can reflect to us the light of the Spirit. (Report of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s words as quoted in J. E. Esslemont, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era”, p. 89) [32] If one friend feels love for another, he will wish to say so. Though he knows that the friend is aware that he loves him, he will still wish to say so.... God knows the wishes of all hearts. But the impulse to prayer is a natural one, springing from man’s love to God.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“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 →“5 For example, the mind and the spirit of man are aware of all his states and conditions, of all the parts and members of his body, and of all his physical sensations, as well as of his spiritual powers, perceptions, and conditions. This is an existential knowledge through which man realizes his own condition. He both senses and comprehends it, for the spirit encompasses the body and is aware of its sensations and powers. This knowledge is not the result of effort and acquisition: It is an existential matter; it is pure bounty. 6 Since those sanctified realities, the universal Manifestations of God, encompass all created things both in their essence and in their attributes, since They transcend and discover all existing realities, and since They are cognizant of all things, it follows that Their knowledge is divine and not acquired—that is, it is a heavenly grace and a divine discovery.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Desired One
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer use so many different names of God?
- Each name of God in the prayer illuminates a different facet of a reality that no single word could contain. Moving through them is a little like walking around a great source of light, each angle reveals something new. The cumulative effect invites the person praying into an increasingly full sense of who it is they are addressing.
- Can meditating on 'The Desired One' actually help with physical illness?
- Bahá'í teachings hold that healing prayer addresses both spiritual and physical dimensions of a person, while also recognizing that outcomes rest in God's wisdom rather than in any formula we can apply. Reflecting on a name like 'The Desired One' can nurture an inner stillness and orientation that supports overall wellbeing, but it works alongside, not instead of, medical care. Always consult qualified healthcare providers for physical conditions.
- Is longing for God considered a virtue in the Bahá'í Faith?
- Longing and love for God are spoken of throughout the Bahá'í writings as among the deepest impulses of the human soul, not weaknesses to be overcome, but energies to be consciously directed. The name 'The Desired One' gently honors that impulse, suggesting that our longing for something beyond the material world is not a mistake but a sign of our spiritual nature.
- Do I need to understand each name of God to benefit from reciting this prayer?
- Understanding enriches the experience, but it is not a prerequisite. Prayer in the Bahá'í understanding is rooted in sincerity and love more than in intellectual mastery. That said, taking time to sit with a single name, as this page invites you to do, can gradually deepen both the understanding and the love together.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer