Chanting And The Development Of Your Powers Of Concentration
Chanting in a spiritual context is the repetition of a mantra, sound, word, phrase, verse or entire song. Chanting is a practice that many of the worlds spiritual and religious traditions uphold.
There are many purposes to a chanting practice. Depending on what the tradition is or what the actual practice is, will have a relation to what the actual purpose of the chanting practice.
One thing that chanting does facilitate for all the traditions, is that of concentration.
All of your attention is focused on the chanting of that mantra or word. Directed into that mantra is all your energy and your emotions. Your sound is directed to that mantra. If your mind wanders, it has to wander back in order to perform the chanting.
This facilitates the development of concentration. This is called “one pointed concentration” in the Vedic and Yogic traditions of India.
What is the purpose of concentration?
Having the ability to concentrate the mind provides numerous benefits. There are the obvious benefits that can be applied to everyday life.
The ability to stay focused. A capacity to remain with the task at hand and finish it. The ability to develop your memory and not forget.
New neural connections in the brain are created when you practice chanting on an ongoing basis. This is laying down new neural pathways of concentration.
Today there is the huge rise in attention related disorders such as ADD. The human mind is becoming a mess. The capacity to focus, concentrate, remember and actually retain information is become a lost art in todays age.
This situation is not assisted with the information overload that we consume as our diet and the various media we choose to surround ourselves with such as the TV, DVDs, film, mobiles etc etc.
A chanting practice helps the brain to regain and develop concentration. This concentration can then be applied, or rather is naturally integrated into life for when you need to accomplish things that require focus and concentration. If you feel you could do with help of a little concentration, develop your mind and powers of concentration with a chanting practice.
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