Any path you follow, you have to follow the regulative principles as they
are enacted by authorities. So in our disciplic succession, previous acaryas, they have advised that you should have your dress like this, you should have your head like this, you… So we have to follow that. Mahajano yena gatah sa panthah [Cc. Madhya 17.186].

Our principle is to follow the footprints of authorities. So these things
are not unauthorized. These are being followed from time immemorial — this dress, this tilaka, this chanting. Everything. Just like you see the picture of Lord Caitanya, we are following the same principles. This was being enacted five hundred years ago. The same principle we are following. We are not introducing anything new. We are simply following the footprints of our predecessors.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Bhagavad-gita 4.39–42 — January 14, 1969, Los Angeles