Hare Krishna!
All glories to Srila Gurudeva and Srila Prabhupada.
While finding a Krishna bhakta is extremely difficult in this world, as the shastras say, those who have even taken initiation, if they are not careful of this danger, they will fall down instead of advancing. It does not matter how much chanting one may do, but advancement is not possible if he is associating with non-devotees, and hence one should completely give up bad association by all means.
It is stated in the Viṣṇu-rahasya (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.112)):
āliṅganaṁ varaṁ manye
vyāla-vyāghra-jalaukasām
na saṅgaḥ śalya-yuktānāṁ
nānā-devaikasevinām
“It is better to live with or embrace a poisonous snake, a dangerous tiger or an alligator ready to swallow you than to associate with those whose hearts are filled with varieties of material desires and who worship various demigods.”
This world is full of karmis who are addicted to so many desires. They run after devas and demigods begging for favors so that they can enjoy this world. They run after one demigod after another, or worship as many of them to get as much favour they want. They do not even have a basic discrimination among spirits, ghosts, ancestors, devas, demigods and Bhagavan. In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says that these people have lost their intelligence:
kāmais tais tair hṛita-jñānāḥ
prapadyante ’nya-devatāḥ
taṁ taṁ niyamam āsthāya
prakṛityā niyatāḥ svayā (B.G. 7.20)
[Lord Krsna says, “Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires, do not worship Me. Instead they worship demi gods by following their rules to fulfill their material desires. Being swept away and lost by their own nature, they will worship devatas.”]
In fact their intelligence has been so corrupted that they are even equating demigods to Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. But Krishna says that none can even come to even a tiny speck of His glories. He says that all the demigods are also so ignorant about His glories and the demigods also do not know Him really!
By associating with those who are karmis, yogis, or jnanis, a neophyte devotee has the danger of getting contaminated and dragged down. So the association we have with, is extremely important. We need good sadhu sanga. We see many cases where devotees due to their bad associations have fallen down. In many cases the bad associations are right within the family to drag the devotees down!
So the summary is:
If a Krishna devotee is mingling with non-devotees, materialists or those who worship demigods, has a great danger of falling down. This is the reason devotees should live in the holy dhams and associate with advanced devotees as much as possible. So, we have to be very careful!
Thank you!!