No. 114 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer

The Life-giving One

In the very midst of naming the Constant and the Abiding, the prayer turns to the One from whom life itself flows, and asks that flow to touch us now.

I call on Thee O Constant One, O Life-giving One, O Source of all Being! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer

What “The Life-giving 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.

There is a difference between things that sustain life and the source from which life originates. Water sustains us, sunlight nourishes us, food rebuilds us, but none of these created themselves. The name 'The Life-giving One' points past every secondary cause to the single origin that bestows the capacity for existence in the first place. It is not merely that God keeps life going once it has started; it is that nothing would have the quality of being alive at all without a continuous gift from this source. The name carries the sense of an active, ongoing bestowal, not a one-time ignition but a perpetual pouring-forth.

In many spiritual traditions, life is understood to have layers. There is biological life, heartbeat, breath, the chemistry of cells, and there is something harder to name: the animating quality that makes a person not just a functioning body but a conscious, yearning, loving presence in the world. When the prayer invokes 'The Life-giving One,' it seems to reach toward both of these layers at once. Whatever we mean by being truly alive, awake, aware, connected, growing, that fullness is understood in this tradition to be a gift that God alone can give and renew.

It is worth sitting with the placement of this name in the prayer's sequence. It arrives alongside 'The Constant One' and 'The Abiding One', names that speak of permanence and steadiness. The Life-giving One does not flicker or exhaust itself. It is not a burst of vitality that fades but a constant, abiding source. For anyone who has felt their own energy or hope diminish, through illness, grief, or sheer weariness, that pairing is quietly remarkable. The One who gives life is also the One who does not run out.

Calling on The Life-giving One for healing

When we are sick or depleted, what we often feel most acutely is a kind of dimming, as though the force that usually animates us has grown faint. Calling on 'The Life-giving One' in prayer is, in one sense, an act of turning toward the origin of that animating force and asking it to move again, more fully, in us. This is not a transaction or a demand; it is more like a plant orienting itself toward the light it cannot produce on its own. The prayer does not tell us exactly what form the response will take, and wise reflection from within the Bahá'í tradition reminds us that what constitutes genuine healing, and its timing, rests in a wisdom far greater than our own. We bring our need honestly; we hold the outcome in trust.

That trust does not make the prayer passive. Calling on The Life-giving One while also seeking the care of a skilled physician, or a counselor, or a community, is entirely consistent with how healing has been understood in this tradition. Material and spiritual means are not rivals; they work in concert. So this name can be on our lips in a hospital waiting room just as naturally as in quiet meditation at home. It is an acknowledgment that beneath every remedy and every moment of recovery, something is happening that no chart fully captures, a gift of life from its ultimate source, offered in ways and measures that belong to God's own knowledge.

Also sought as: life-giving one bahá'í prayer · long healing prayer names of god · bahá'u'lláh healing prayer life · lawh-i-anta'l-kafi life-giving · source of life bahá'í prayer · divine life-giver bahá'í · healing prayer vitality god · bahá'í prayer for healing and life · names of god in healing prayer · life-giving god bahá'í.

In the Bahá'í Writings

Questions about The Life-giving One

Does calling God 'The Life-giving One' mean the prayer will physically heal me?

The prayer is a sincere turning toward God, not a guaranteed medical outcome. Thoughtful voices within the Bahá'í tradition have noted that healing, whether or not it comes in the form we expect, rests in divine wisdom. Praying this name is an act of trust and orientation, best combined with the care of qualified medical professionals rather than offered as a substitute for it.

Why is 'The Life-giving One' placed alongside names like 'The Constant' and 'The Abiding'?

That grouping seems to draw a portrait of a vitality that is not temporary or conditional. Life as given by God is not a spark that simply burns out; it comes from a source described as steady and enduring. For someone in the middle of illness or exhaustion, that pairing carries real consolation, the one who gives life does not run dry.

Does this name refer only to physical life, or also to spiritual life?

Both dimensions seem present. Physical life is certainly encompassed, but the broader sense of being truly awake, spiritually aware, capable of love and growth, appears to be understood in this tradition as equally a gift from the same source. The prayer is considered to address body and soul together, not one at the expense of the other.

Can anyone pray this name, or only Bahá'ís?

The Long Healing Prayer was revealed by Bahá'u'lláh, and Bahá'ís recite it as part of their devotional life. However, the name itself, The Life-giving One, points to a quality of God that many people across traditions have recognized and sought. Anyone drawn to reflect on it is welcome to do so; formal use of the prayer belongs within its own devotional context.

Related Names of God