No. 48 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Rising One
In a name that speaks of perpetual ascent, the Long Healing Prayer invites us to call on a God who rises, and in rising, draws us upward with Him.
I call on Thee O Rising One, O Gathering One, O Exalting 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 · Rising
1. Attaining a higher place; taking, or moving in, an upward direction; appearing above the horizon; ascending; as, the rising moon. 2. Increasing in wealth, power, or distinction; as, a rising state; a rising character. Among the rising theologians of Germany. Hare. 3. Growing; advancing to adult years and to the state of active life; as, the rising generation. More than; exceeding; upwards of; as, a horse rising six years of age. [Colloq. & Low, U.S.] 1. The act of one who, or that which, rises (in any sense). 2. That which rises; a tumor; a boil. Lev. xiii. 10. …
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 Rising 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 Rising One' is to say something quietly extraordinary: that the source of all existence is not static, not remote, not settled into indifference. Rising carries the sense of active, ongoing movement, the sun cresting the horizon, water swelling upward from a spring, a dignitary standing when someone in need enters the room. Each image suggests attention, initiative, a turning toward rather than away. When the prayer places this name alongside 'The Gathering One' and 'The Exalting One,' it paints a portrait of a God who is perpetually in motion on behalf of creation.
There is also something deeply hopeful encoded in the word 'rising.' What rises does not stay down. It moves against the pull of gravity, against entropy, against the tendency of things to settle and diminish. In naming God 'The Rising One,' the prayer seems to be saying that the deepest reality in the universe is not decline but ascent, that the arc of things, held in divine hands, bends upward. For someone in the middle of illness, grief, or confusion, this is not a small comfort. It is a reorientation of the whole picture.
It is worth noticing that the name is given in the present continuous sense: not 'The One Who Rose' or 'The One Who Will Rise,' but The Rising One, an unbroken, unfinished action. This is a God caught mid-movement, always in the act of lifting. That grammatical detail, small as it seems, suggests that whatever moment we bring to prayer, we are arriving into an ascent already underway.
Calling on The Rising One for healing
When you are ill, in body, in mind, or in some less nameable place inside yourself, the experience can feel profoundly like sinking. Energy drains. Hope gets harder to locate. The world seems to contract around the weight of what you are carrying. It is in precisely this kind of moment that calling on The Rising One can become something more than recitation. It can be an act of alignment: a quiet insistence that the direction of God is upward, and that you are held within that movement even when you cannot feel it. You are not asked to manufacture optimism. You are asked only to turn toward a name, and let the name do its work.
The Bahá'í teachings are clear that healing prayers work on both the body and the soul, and that whether physical healing comes is held wisely in God's hands, not withheld out of indifference, but governed by a wisdom that sees further than we do. This means that calling on The Rising One is not a transaction or a technique; it is a relationship. You bring the sinking, and you address it to the Rising. Whatever the outcome for the body, something in the soul can genuinely be lifted by that encounter. If you are navigating a health concern, please do also seek the care of qualified medical professionals, the Bahá'í writings speak warmly of medicine and of physicians as instruments of healing in their own right.
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Living the Word
Applying The Rising One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Rising 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
“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 →“31.1Wherefore must the friends of God, with utter sanctity, with one accord, rise up in the spirit, in unity with one another, to such a degree that they will become even as one being and one soul. On such a plane as this, physical bodies play no part, rather doth the spirit take over and rule; and when its power encompasseth all, then is spiritual union achieved. Strive ye by day and night to cultivate your unity to the fullest degree. Let your thoughts dwell on your own spiritual development, and close your eyes to the deficiencies of other souls. Act ye in such wise, showing forth pure and goodly deeds, and modesty and humility, that ye will cause others to be awakened. Creating Unity Among Humanity 32.1O ye friends of God! True friends are even as skilled physicians, and the Teachings of God are as healing balm, a medicine for the conscience of man. They clear the head, so that a man can breathe them in and delight in their sweet fragrance. They waken those who sleep. They bring awareness to the unheeding, and a portion to the outcast, and to the hopeless, hope.”
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 Rising One
- What does it mean that God is called 'The Rising One' rather than simply 'The High One' or 'The Exalted One'?
- The distinction lies in movement. A name like 'The High One' describes a fixed state, a position already arrived at and held. 'The Rising One' describes an ongoing action, something continuously in motion. It suggests that God's relationship to creation is not one of settled distance but of active, unceasing ascent, and perhaps of lifting. The other names in the same invocation, 'The Gathering One' and 'The Exalting One,' share this same active, present-tense quality, reinforcing the sense of a God perpetually engaged.
- If I recite this prayer for someone who is seriously ill, can I expect them to be healed?
- The Bahá'í writings hold this question with great tenderness and honesty: healing prayers encompass both physical and spiritual healing, and whether physical healing comes is understood to rest in God's wisdom rather than being a guaranteed outcome of prayer. This is not a reason to pray less, but a reason to pray with open hands, trusting that something real is happening even when the result is not what we hoped. Please also make sure anyone who is seriously ill is receiving proper medical attention alongside any spiritual practice.
- Why are several names of God clustered together in this one line of the prayer?
- The Long Healing Prayer is structured as a sustained, layered address to God, and grouping names seems to deepen and widen the invocation rather than narrowing it to a single attribute. Each name illuminates the others, 'The Rising One' beside 'The Gathering One' and 'The Exalting One' creates a kind of movement: ascending, drawing in, lifting up. Reading them together gives a richer sense of the divine character being called upon than any single name could offer alone.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer