Becoming fat is not a very good qualification in spiritual life because a person who is engaged in spiritual life must reduce the comforts of the body - namely eating, sleeping and mating - to a minimum

Expressions researched:
"Becoming fat is not a very good qualification in spiritual life because a person who is engaged in spiritual life must reduce the comforts of the body—namely eating, sleeping and mating—to a minimum"

SB Canto 4

Becoming fat is not a very good qualification in spiritual life because a person who is engaged in spiritual life must reduce the comforts of the body—namely eating, sleeping and mating—to a minimum.

SB 4.23.20, Purport:

When Caitanya Mahāprabhu took sannyāsa, His wife, Viṣṇupriyādevī, although only sixteen years old, also took the vow of austerity due to her husband's leaving home. She chanted her beads, and after finishing one round, she collected one grain of rice. In this way, as many rounds as she chanted, she would receive the same number of rice grains and then cook them and so take prasāda. This is called austerity. Even today in India, widows or women whose husbands have taken sannyāsa follow the principles of austerity, even though they live with their children. Pṛthu Mahārāja's wife, Arci, was steadily determined to execute the duty of a wife, and while her husband was in the forest, she followed him in eating only fruits and leaves and lying down on the ground. Since a woman's body is considerably more delicate than a man's, Queen Arci became very frail and thin, parikarśitā. When one engages in austerities, his body generally becomes lean and thin. Becoming fat is not a very good qualification in spiritual life because a person who is engaged in spiritual life must reduce the comforts of the body—namely eating, sleeping and mating—to a minimum. Although Queen Arci became very thin from living in the forest according to regulative principles, she was not unhappy, for she was enjoying the honor of serving her great husband.