No. 13 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Eternal One
In a world where everything passes, this name turns our hearts toward the One who never does.
I call on Thee O Peerless One, O Eternal One, O Single 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 · Eternal
1. Without beginning or end of existence; always existing. The eternal God is thy refuge. Deut. xxxiii. 27. To know wether there were any real being, whose duration has been eternal. Locke. 2. Without end of existence or duration; everlasting; endless; immortal. That they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 2 Tim. ii. 10. 3. Continued without intermission; perpetual; ceaseless; constant. And fires eternal in thy temple shine. Dryden. 4. Existing at all times without change; immutable. Hobbes believed the eternal truths which he opposed. Dryden. …
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 Eternal 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.
The name 'The Eternal One' points to something that our ordinary experience can barely hold: a Being who exists outside the boundaries of time altogether. We live inside time, we feel it in our aging bodies, in our grief over what has passed, in our anxiety about what has not yet arrived. To call on God as The Eternal One is to acknowledge that there is a Reality for whom past and future are not pressing problems, because He simply transcends the whole arrangement. This is not an abstract philosophical idea; it is a statement about where the ultimate ground of existence actually stands.
What the name evokes, perhaps most powerfully, is steadiness. Human helpers, even the most gifted and devoted among them, are themselves subject to change, limitation, and eventual disappearance. Their knowledge grows and is revised; their energy wanes; their lives end. The Eternal One is not constrained by any of this. Whatever care, wisdom, or healing power flows from that source does not dry up, does not become outdated, and is not interrupted by circumstance. That is a remarkable thing to contemplate, especially from a place of vulnerability.
There is also something quietly humbling in this name. If God is truly eternal, then our suffering, as real and as weighty as it is, is held within a perspective far larger than we can calculate. This does not make pain small or dismissible. It means, rather, that pain does not have the last word, and that the One we are addressing when we pray has already, in some sense, seen the whole of our story.
Calling on The Eternal One for healing
When illness, loss, or exhaustion has made the future feel very uncertain, the name The Eternal One can become an anchor. In calling on God by this name, a person is not pretending that the present moment is fine, they are reaching toward something that holds steady precisely when nothing else does. There is a kind of prayer that is less about asking for a specific outcome and more about placing oneself in the presence of a reality that outlasts every difficulty. Calling on The Eternal One can open that kind of prayer. It does not bypass the need for good medical care, seeking the help of skilled and compassionate physicians is itself a sound and encouraged response to illness, but it situates all of that effort within a larger trust.
It is also worth sitting with the simple comfort that The Eternal One has no urgency problem. We often feel that if healing does not come quickly enough, something will be lost forever. That fear is understandable and deeply human. But the One being addressed in this prayer is not racing a clock. Bringing our need before The Eternal One is an act of releasing it from the grip of our own time-bound panic, even if only for the duration of a prayer. Whatever the outcome, and outcomes remain entirely in God's hands, not ours to predict or guarantee, that release itself can be a form of healing for an anxious spirit.
Also sought as: the eternal one bahá'í prayer · god as eternal in bahai faith · long healing prayer eternal · lawh-i-anta'l-kafi names of god · timeless god healing prayer · bahai prayer for healing names · eternal god bahai · calling on god's eternity in prayer · healing prayer name eternal one · bahá'u'lláh prayer eternal.
Living the Word
Applying The Eternal One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Eternal 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
“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 →“Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exerciseth undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things. This is what is meant by Divine unity; this is its fundamental principle. Some, deluded by their idle fancies, have conceived all created things as associates and partners of God, and imagined themselves to be the exponents of His unity. By Him Who is the one true God! Such men have been, and will continue to remain, the victims of blind imitation, and are to be numbered with them that have restricted and limited the conception of God.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“21.1That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error. 22.1Beware, O believers in the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This indeed is the true meaning of Divine Unity, if ye be of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye assured, moreover, that the works and acts of each and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay whatever pertaineth unto them, and whatsoever they may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Eternal One
- Does calling God 'The Eternal One' mean time doesn't matter in healing?
- Not at all, the name is less about dismissing time than about recognizing that God is not limited by it the way we are. Our experience of waiting, urgency, and change is real and valid. This name invites us to bring those very time-bound anxieties to a source that is larger than them, not to pretend they don't exist.
- Is there a specific way I should use this name when I pray the Long Healing Prayer?
- The prayer itself is a complete devotional act, and there is no prescribed technique for pausing on individual names. Many people find it meaningful to slow down at a name that speaks to their particular need on a given day, letting it resonate before continuing. Ultimately, how you engage with it is a matter between you and God.
- Can this prayer replace medical treatment?
- No, and it is important to say so clearly. The Bahá'í teachings consistently encourage believers to consult qualified physicians and to use the best available medical knowledge. Prayer and medical care are understood as complementary, not competing, both are means through which healing may come, and neither should be abandoned in favor of the other.
- Why does the same passage in the prayer call God both 'The Eternal One' and 'The Abiding One'? Aren't those the same thing?
- They are closely related, but they carry different shades of meaning. 'Eternal' tends to suggest existence beyond time, having no beginning and no end. 'Abiding' leans more toward steadfast presence and continuity within our experience, the sense that God does not abandon or withdraw. Together they paint a fuller picture: a God who is both timeless in nature and reliably present in relationship.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer