No. 6 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Exalted One
To address God as the Exalted One is to acknowledge that the source of all healing stands infinitely above every obstacle, illness, or despair we bring before Him.
I call on Thee O Exalted One, O Faithful One, O Glorious 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 · Exalted
Raised to lofty height; elevated; extolled; refined; dignified; sublime. Wiser far than Solomon, Of more exalted mind. Milton. Time never fails to bring every exalted reputation to a strict scrutiny. Ames.
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 Exalted 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 word 'exalted' carries a sense of height so complete that nothing can diminish it, not human failure, not the weight of suffering, not the passage of time. When we speak of God as the Exalted One, we are not simply paying a compliment; we are orienting ourselves. We are admitting that there is a reality above the ceiling of our own understanding, and that this reality is not cold or distant but is being directly addressed, right now, in the words of this prayer.
In many spiritual traditions, exaltation and nearness seem to be in tension, the higher a being stands, the further away it feels. But in the devotional world of the Long Healing Prayer, the name the Exalted One appears alongside names like the Faithful One and the Abiding One, suggesting that God's transcendence and His constancy belong together. He is not exalted in the way a mountain is exalted, unreachable and indifferent, but in the way that the sky encompasses everything beneath it, present to every point at once.
There is also something quietly humbling about beginning a petition with this name. To say 'O Exalted One' before stating our need is to place that need in proportion. Whatever has overwhelmed us, physical pain, grief, a mind that will not settle, it has not overwhelmed Him. His exaltation is precisely what makes Him capable of meeting what is beyond our own capacity to bear or to heal.
Calling on The Exalted One for healing
When we are ill, one of the hardest things to hold onto is any sense of perspective. Pain and fear have a way of filling the entire frame of awareness, making it difficult to believe that anything larger or steadier exists. Calling on God as the Exalted One can be a gentle act of reorientation, not a denial of how serious things are, but a deliberate turning of the heart toward the One whose vantage point is not bounded by a diagnosis, a prognosis, or a difficult night. This is not magical thinking; it is an act of trust that places our situation in a wider light.
It is worth remembering that the Bahá'í writings are careful to hold healing as a gift given in God's wisdom rather than a guarantee automatically granted. Calling on the Exalted One does not bypass the wisdom and care of physicians, seeking competent medical attention is fully consistent with, and encouraged alongside, turning to prayer. What this name offers is not a shortcut but a companion posture: the recognition that even when human knowledge reaches its limit, it has not reached His.
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Living the Word
Applying The Exalted One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Exalted 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 →“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 Exalted One
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer use so many names of God in quick succession?
- Each name illuminates a different facet of the divine reality, and together they create a kind of full-spectrum address, the one praying is not reaching toward a vague force but toward a Being who is at once exalted and faithful, glorious and abiding. Bahá'í devotional practice regards the names of God as spiritually potent in themselves, and reciting them is understood as a way of drawing closer to the qualities they represent. Scholars and authoritative interpreters can say more precisely what each name signifies; here we simply note that the cumulative effect is one of reverent, specific intimacy.
- Can I say this prayer for someone else who is sick?
- Many Bahá'ís do offer prayers on behalf of others who are ill, and there is nothing in the guidance of the Faith that restricts the Long Healing Prayer to personal use only. The Bahá'í writings indicate that healing prayers apply to both physical and spiritual ailments and that the outcome rests in God's wisdom. Praying for another person is an act of love and solidarity, and it can be offered alongside, never as a substitute for, whatever medical care that person is receiving.
- Does calling God 'Exalted' mean He is too far away to help with something as ordinary as sickness?
- This is a natural question, and the overall message of the Long Healing Prayer points in the opposite direction. The same breath that names God as Exalted also names Him as Sufficing and Abiding, present, sustaining, enduring. In the Bahá'í understanding, God's greatness does not create distance from human suffering; if anything, the writings suggest it is the very ground of His capacity to address that suffering. The Exalted One is also the One who is described, elsewhere in the Bahá'í writings, as closer to us than our own life-vein.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer