The ashram's own app and radio

Sri Ramanasramam has made much of its treasury genuinely accessible in the modern way ~ through an official app and online audio streams / radio that carry the chanting, the hymns, talks, and readings from the works. This is the simplest way for someone far from Arunachala to have the authentic sound of the ashram in their pocket. Search for the official Sri Ramanasramam app and its online radio, and prefer these to unofficial re-uploads, which are often incomplete or of poor quality ~ and which do not support the ashram that preserves the tradition.

The bhajans of the town

Beyond Ramanasramam's contemplative chanting runs the other great current of Arunachala's sound ~ the warm, rhythmic bhajans of the devotional path. The Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram resounds with the singing of the Name morning and evening, and the mantra he loved ~ Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram ~ can be found in recordings from his ashram's official channels. On a full-moon night, the whole Girivalam road becomes a river of song. If Ramanasramam's chanting is the sound of silence deepening, the town's bhajans are the sound of the heart pouring out ~ two devotions, one hill.

How to use the sound

You need not understand a word of Sanskrit or Tamil for this to work on you ~ that is rather the point. Play the chanting quietly as you sit; let the Aksharamanamalai accompany your own walk, wherever you are; let the sound do what sound does, which is to gather the scattered mind and turn it, gently, homeward. Many who have been to Arunachala find that the recordings carry them straight back; many who have never been find that the sound is itself a kind of pilgrimage. For the hymns themselves, see the Five Hymns to Arunachala and the Aksharamanamalai.