Chanting can be practiced as a form of one pointed meditation through working with a mantra. The objective of one pointed meditation is to focus the mind. The mind in this case focuses on the mantra that is being chanted and nothing else.
Personally speaking I find chanting a mantra a much easier way to meditate to achieve one pointedness than other forms of meditation. I believe this is due to the vibrational power of the sound of the voice.
In the beginning stages of chanting with a mantra one has to concentrate very hard to focus and stay with the mantra. The mind will drift here and there as you are chanting and thoughts will come and go.
After some time with regular continuity the chanting practice starts to transform. Joy comes into the practice if it wasn’t there to begin with and a sense of peace and happiness and come with ongoing practice.
With more practice further changes occur. All that practice and training to focus the mind, still the mind and become one pointed pays off. Now there is the ability to stay focused without so much effort. The mind has become a little trained by now.
With further practice different states can be accessed through the one pointedness.
Once a particular level is reached one’s mind has achieved a state where it can hold concentration and focus with very little effort. It is like being suspended in the mantra space that has been created. The feel good states remain and become even blissful whilst suspended within the mantra.
Throughout all this chanting practice the mind and emotions have been trained. The brain has also neurologically been changed. New neural connections and pathways have been laid down. You create “new grooves” in the mind that facilitate the states of concentration.
This ability to concentrate can then be applied in other areas of life when you need to concentrate such as lectures, performing tasks, assimilating information or whatever it is you need to do that requires concentration.
Chanting is a wonderful way to do this as you get to retrain your mind and emotions and lay down these new grooves in the mind all at the same time while working with the beauty of sound as a form of meditation.