J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [163]
The delicacy of this scene is perhaps marred by Zooey’s explanation of it. “There are nice things in the world,” he reasons. “We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked. Always, always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.” The lines can be interpreted as a marriage of Salinger’s former and contemporary themes. A chance glimpse of a common event allows Zooey to be awakened to the presence of beauty in the world. It occurs through the innocent purity of a little girl, very much in the same way as it had to the previous Salinger characters Babe Gladwaller and Holden Caulfield. But “Zooey” goes beyond the revelation of Babe and Holden by pointing out the tendency of ego to obscure the divine beauty so abundant in everyday life.
Salinger derived the inspiration for “Zooey” from two primary sources: a book published by the Self-Realization Foundation and his own personal struggle with ego. While writing “Zooey,” Salinger continued his involvement with the Self-Realization Foundation that he had begun in 1955. The foundation had been organized in 1920 by the Indian sage Paramahansa Yogananda. When, in 1954, Salinger read Yogananda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi, it reaffirmed his own religious convictions and influenced his marriage to Claire. After studying Autobiography in depth and incorporating many of its teachings into his own work, just as he had done with The Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna, he immersed himself in Yogananda’s other writings. Foremost among them was Yogananda’s immense two-volume work The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. The religious tenets presented in this book are the foundation of the spiritual message delivered by Salinger in “Zooey.”
Yogananda claimed to have received the only true interpretation of the Christian Gospels and the life of Christ through divine revelation.* His weighty text is an explanation of the words and deeds of Christ as he interpreted them. The Second Coming of Christ examines the four Gospels verse by verse. According to Yogananda, Jesus was so filled with God-consciousness that he actually became one with the Almighty, or, in Yogananda’s view, a Son of God. This was a position that implied holiness but not divinity. The yogi felt that everyone was a child of God and could awaken the holiness within themselves through prayer and meditation. It was his contention that the awakening of that holiness was the true meaning of resurrection. The second coming of Christ, therefore, was not an actual physical event to occur in the future. Instead, Yogananda believed that Christ’s promise to return could be fulfilled at any time by any person through the attainment of spiritual oneness with God. Yogananda’s text terms this spiritual awakening “Christ Consciousness” and describes it as the ability of mankind to become holy by recognizing the presence of God within all things.
Critics have asserted that Zooey is Salinger’s most perfectly crafted character, apart from Holden Caulfield. While Salinger and Buddy Glass narrate “Zooey” with a single voice, it is within the character of Zooey Glass that Salinger is most deeply embedded. From the time he completed The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger maintained the philosophy that his work was the equivalent of spiritual meditation. That philosophy only deepened when the solitude of Cornish buffered him against the distractions of publicity and fame. The public’s interest in Salinger, with its fan mail and flattery and the constant barrage of reviews and articles praising his work, only served to fracture his meditation, and he protested that attention and scrutiny hampered his writing and he was unable to produce if he felt himself “in the news.” Yet a part of J. D. Salinger