PHOTO: J Jaye Gold, author, mentor, and founder of the Centre for Cultural & Naturalist Studies, dedicated to exploring consciousness and serving humanity.
Exploring Life’s Depths Through Books And Human Connection
J Jaye Gold reflects on his decades of spiritual exploration, global service, and storytelling, weaving travel, friendship, and photographs into works that inspire readers to embrace life’s depth and boldness.
J Jaye Gold has spent more than four decades walking alongside those in search of meaning, offering guidance with quiet dedication and an uncommon generosity. Never asking for compensation, he has allowed his work to remain unbound by transaction, a service rooted instead in presence, listening, and compassion. His voice, at once candid and contemplative, is threaded through his writings—books that range from memoir and travel narrative to collected talks and photo essays, each serving as a vessel for reflection.
In works such as Justin Time and Another Heart in His Hand, Gold traces the interplay between ordinary encounters and extraordinary awakenings. His stories move across continents, through chance friendships, and into the hidden chambers of human resilience, always returning to the notion that life itself is the ultimate school of consciousness. Whether in the company of fellow seekers, strangers met abroad, or friends gathered around a card table, he draws out truths that feel at once deeply personal and universally resonant.
More recently, with The Currency of Moments, Gold has turned to photography as a companion to distilled wisdom, a way of marrying image and insight in order to open new doors of exploration. His vision is not didactic but invitational: each picture, each phrase, becomes a catalyst for the reader’s own inquiry. For him, art—whether story, photograph, or song—is less about conclusion than about the possibility of discovery.
Underlying all this is a profound commitment to service. Through the Centre for Cultural & Naturalist Studies, the international relief organisation he founded, Gold extends his philosophy into tangible action, reminding us that exploration of the inner world must be balanced with acts of care in the outer one. His writing, then, is not separate from his living—it is another expression of the same essential call: to seek, to serve, and to share.
How did your 2021 photo essay book The Currency of Moments evolve from decades of travel and social work, and what drove you to pair each image with distilled wisdom?
From time to time, I look at Facebook and frequently see photos and drawings with sayings attached. Usually, they are attributed to some celebrity of wisdom, either past or present. It seems that in this time of the elevated stature of notoriety, we have forgotten that everyone has wisdom to share, so I started to create my own and post them. That was so fulfilling that the book was a natural evolution, so I created my own synthesis of my own photos and sayings.
In In the Company of Servants & Heroes, you share public talks spanning continents—how did selecting and structuring these for a collected volume change your perspective on your own teachings?
Over the years, I have become more flexible about recording and transcribing the talks I have given. It seems that technology has slowly won me over. The book to which you refer was assembled by my friends, and I gave them my okay to do what they saw fit. I have that kind of respect for their capacity to both value and decide what should be included. The book was their idea, and they started with about 1000 talks over 30 years. I have read it since and am very gratified that so many important thoughts, feelings, and ideas have been documented.
Justin Time recounts your journey from New York youth through global spiritual maturity—how do the early experiences you describe shape your approach to spiritual mentorship now?
As a young person, I had the great fortune to be around people who professed confidence in my abilities. Whether it was through proficiency in playing the violin or academics, I developed the attitude that I could do anything to which I applied myself. Curiously, once I became a teenager, this confidence caused me not to apply myself to anything. Later on, I had periods of random motivation and even energetically pursued some unconventional goals, but it was not until I tripped over the possibility of uncovering another level of consciousness that I found something worthy of dedication. My present go-for-it attitude is a product of much trial and error, so I encourage my friends to live boldly and take chances.
Highway of Diamonds blends adventure with rescue and deep encounter—what inspired you to weave together high stakes travel with broader human insights in Morocco, Turkey, and beyond?
I was not a reader at first. I mean not at all. Sometime later, I became a voracious one. I have developed a great value for the art form of elucidating ideas and feelings through a story. The epitome of this type of writing is a fairytale. I think it is infinitely superior to how-to type writing. Writing a fairy tale seemed beyond my reach, so I decided to write a travel adventure story and bury as many of my ideas as the plot would allow. Of course, I took some poetic license in the writing, but everything in that book happened in some actual form and in some actual place.
Your memoir Another Heart in His Hand explores a friendship born through poker and spirituality—how did that unusual bond influence your later teaching methods?
I have discovered that we have been given a school for exploring consciousness, so creating one is not needed. Life is that school, and that means all of it. If a relationship between poker players can be a metaphor worthy of exploration, then think of how unlimited the horizon of exploration could be. Of course, this book is not about an ordinary poker player but a truly remarkable human being. This anomaly made possible the exploration of both ideas of consciousness and living an unbounded life.
Across your recent works, there’s a tension between image and idea—how do you see photographs functioning as catalysts for deeper introspection in The Currency of Moments?
The term exploration is one I have come to use in describing the process I both use and encourage in others. Of course, learning how to get answers, or what I might call explanation, is important, but not nearly as important as learning how to keep doors open, or what I might call exploration. Photographs lend themselves to interpretation, and interpretation lends itself to exploration. Pictures, poems, songs, and stories allow the observer to draw their own diagram of life rather than having one drawn for them.
As founder of the Center for Cultural & Naturalist Studies, how do you integrate your non profit service work into the themes and stories within your latest books?
There is no more efficient or rewarding endeavor one can participate in to achieve the perspective of one’s relative importance in this creation than the deliberate attempt to help those less fortunate. Exploration of one’s own consciousness can only be a balanced activity if there is something on the other side of the scale, and that something has to be a natural, not a contrived or artificial something. Yes, we are many individuals, but we are one human being, and taking active recognition and participation in the well-being of others is a natural extension of that reality.
What single piece of advice would you offer to aspiring authors hoping to combine personal narrative, spiritual insight, and social engagement in their writing?
Write your own story. Whatever form it may take, you have no other story to tell.
