Regulative principles and purity discipline

What it is: The best-known institutional practice includes four regulative principles and lacto-vegetarian food discipline.

How the tradition understands it: These rules are presented as support for mental clarity, self-control, and devotion. In many communities, meat, intoxication, gambling, and sexual relations outside the norms accepted by the tradition are prohibited.

Textual basis and context: The discipline derives from ethical, ascetic, and devotional readings of the Gaudiya tradition, reinforced by Prabhupada's pedagogy.

Objections and debates: There is debate about rigidity, cultural adaptation, pastoral criteria, and difference between official norm and effective practice of adherents.