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There are two points to be noted in this passage. First is the command to love one’s enemies as one’s friends, which is presented as the way to becoming perfect as God   is perfect. In Buddhism   this is what is known as “non-differentiating love beyond enmity and friendship.” Second, God’s causing the sun   ro rise on the evil as well   as the good, and the rain to fall on the unjust and just alike, is cited as an example of this perfection. The phenomenon this speaks to is similar to what I referred to before as the indifference of nature, except that here it is not a cold and insensitive indifference, but the indifference of love. It is a nondifferentiating love that transcends the distinctions men make between good and evil, justice and injustice.

The indifference of nature reduces everything to the level of a highest abstract common denominator, be it matter or some particular physical element. In contrast, the indifference of love embraces all things in their most concrete Form—for example, good men and evil men—and accepts the differences for what they are.

What is it like, this non-differentiating love, this agape  , that loves even enemies? In a word, it is “making oneself empty.” In the case of Christ  , it meant taking the form of man and becoming a servant, in accordance with the will of God, who is the origin of the ekkenosis or “making himself empty” of Christ. God’s love is such that it shows itself [59] willing to forgive even the sinner who has turned against him, and this forgiving love is an expression of the “perfection” of God who embraces without distinction the evil as well as the good. Accordingly, the meaning of self-emptying may be said to be contained within God himself. In Christ, ekkendsis is realized in the fact that one who was in the shape of God took on the shape of a servant; with God, it is implied already in his original perfection. That is to say, the very fact itself of God’s being God essentially entails the characteristic of “having made himself empty.” With Christ we speak of a deed that has been accomplished; with God, of an original nature. What is ekkenosis for the Son is kenosis for the Father. In the East, this would be called anatman, or non-ego [vide sunyata].

Hating one’s enemies and loving one’s friends are sentiments typical of human love. They belong to the field of the ego. Indifferent love belongs rather to the realm of non-ego. And it is this characteristic of non-ego that is contained by nature in the perfection of God. For man to actualize this perfection of God, to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect and so to “become a son of God  ,” man must engage himself in loving his enemies. This requires a transition from differentiating human love to non-differentiating divine love. It means denying eros and turning to agape, denying ego and turning to non-ego. Christ embodies this perfection of God through the love by which he “emptied himself” of his equality with God to take on the shape of a servant among men. The Christian is said to practice or imitate that selfemptying perfection when he converts from a human differentiating love to a divine non-differentiating love.

Although self-emptying, ego-negating love may be taken as characteristic of divine perfection, we point more expressly to that perfection when we speak of a perfect mode of being rather than of the activity of self-emptying or of loving that is typified in Christ and commanded of man. In other words, as alluded to in the first chapter, the sort of quality we refer to as self-emptied can be seen as essentially entailed from the beginning in the notion of the perfection of God, and the activity of love as consisting in the embodiment or practice of that perfection. Considered in its relation to love as deed or activity, the perfection of God can also be called love. But if the activity of love has a personal character to it—as I think it does—then there is no way around the conclusion that the perfection of God and love in the sense   of that perfection point to something elemental, more basic than the “personal,” and that it is as the embodiment or imitation of this perfection that the “personal” first [60] comes into being. A quality is implied here of transpersonality, or impersonality.

As observed, the term “impersonal” is not to be taken as the opposite of the “personal,” but as the “personally impersonal.” We get an idea   of this personal impersonality from the nondifferentiating love that makes the sun rise on the evil as well as the good, and the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike. In an earlier passage from the gospel   of Matthew  , heaven is called God’s throne, and the earth his footstool. The same sense of the personally impersonal adopted in our discussion of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God might well be applied here as well to the impersonality with which God preempts and stands above the positions of the simply personal, and from which personality derives.

The non-differentiating love that makes the sun rise on the evil as well as the good, on the enemy as well as the ally, contains, as we said, the quality of non-ego. Non-ego (anatman) represents the fundamental standpoint of Buddhism, where it is called the Great Wisdom (maha-prajna  ) and the Great Compassion (maha-karuna  ). I have already had occasion to touch briefly on the former in the first chapter; suffice it here to add a word about maha-karuna, the Great Compassionate Heart, the essential equivalent of the biblical analogy that tells us there is no such thing as selfish or selective sunshine. The sun in the sky makes no choices about where to shine its rays and shows no preferences as to likes or dislikes. There is no selfishness in its shining. This lack of selfishness is what is meant by non-ego, or “emptiness” (sunyata). The perfection of God has this point in common with the Great Compassionate Heart of Buddhism. And that same divine perfection is then demanded of man.

From what has been said, it should be clear that this perfectness of God is something qualitatively very different, for instance, from the personal absoluteness of the God who singled out the people of Israel   as his elect, who commands with absolute will and authority, who loves the righteous and punishes the sinful. If perfection is taken to mean a non-selective non-ego, then personality that engages in making choices can in no sense be taken as a form of perfection. We have here two different ways of looking at God from the Bible. In the past, Christianity has tended to focus only on the aspect of the personal in God. Instances in which attention has been given to the impersonal aspect are few. [NishitaniRN  :58-60]

Aqui é o mesmo, mas apreendido mais profundamente. A antiga doutrina   dizia: «Responde com amor ao amor, e com ódio ao ódio». O mandamento   impunha a correspondência do sentimento; poder-se-ia dizer, a justiça do coração  . Mas este confronto   mostra precisamente que esse amor não é ainda livre. É apenas uma parte da atitude moral, afirmada exatamente com os mesmos direitos perante o ódio. Esse amor vivia, se encontrasse amor. Era ainda só uma parte da existência humana imediata, que consiste em simpatia e defesa. E eis que o Senhor diz: Tal pretensa justiça, do coração não pode ser realizada por si mesma. O ódio que se julga legítimo em face do ódio será imediatamente maior do que aquele a que responde; causará assim injustiça  , e dará direito a novos ódios. Mas o amor que se coloca na dependência   do amor dos outros, será sempre tolhido, incerto, infecundo. Não é ainda o amor verdadeiro, que não tem ódio nenhum a seu lado, que é a força e a medida de toda a existência.

A verdadeira justiça do sentimento só é possível quando for apoiada por uma atitude, a qual já não se justifica pela correspondência de sentimentos, mas pela livre força criadora do coração. Aí então desperta o verdadeiro amor. Agora já não depende da atitude do outro, e, por isso mesmo está livre para o puro efeito da sua essência e acima da ânsia da «justiça». Ele é capaz de ainda que o outro aparentemente lhe dê direito de odiar  . Deste modo adquire o poder de desenraizar o ódio e de o vencer, e só assim consegue exercer a autêntica justiça de coração. Esse amor aprende então a ver o outro no interior, e o que aí se passa com o seu «erro  »; e como, no mais profundo dele não é de erro   que se trata, mas antes talvez de herança, fatalidade, miséria humana — pode agora dar-lhe o seu direito perante Deus, a este irmão que participa da culpa e da miséria comuns.

A menudo pensamos: ¿en qué fallo? Soy incapaz de verme a mí mismo como un pecador, aunque públicamente confieso serlo. Pues guardo los mandamientos, soy amable con mis vecinos, soy justo con mis semejantes, no puedo pensar   en ningún daño concreto que yo haga. Entonces, ¿por qué soy un pecador? Nuestra propia modestia y reverencia puede impedir que nos comparemos con Dios. Y sin embargo aquí está nuestro error; pues si hemos de entrar en el Jardín de la Felicidad y la Paz  , que es el Reino de Dios, éste es el comienzo de nuestro progreso: que nos comparemos en todas las cosas con Dios, a cuya imagen estamos hechos, y, observando con tanta profundidad como podamos los terribles abismos que hay entre nosotros y Él, nos afanemos y obliguemos con lágrimas, humildad y esfuerzo constante en reparar para Él nuestras deficiencias.

«Sed perfectos como Yo soy perfecto.»
«Sed santos como Yo soy santo.»

Si esto no fuera realizable, Él no habría fijado una meta tan alta. Así pues, en esto somos pecadores: ¡en que no somos puros y bellos como el propio Dios! Ésa es una altura prodiogosa, casi inconcebible; sin embargo, Él quiere que lo intentemos, y todos los poderes del Cielo   están con nosotros mientras subimos. [FONTE DE OURO]