Is it safe to leave the voltages on auto?
No not really or at the very least not advisable.
Re your OP it depends how far you're going to push it really. If you wanted a moderate overclock to say 3.2GHz ish then you could probably do it without having to raise any voltages or possibly only a tad extra vcore.
Here's what I would do:
Reset to defaults in BIOS if you've changed anything.
Turn off any powersaving features etc. (EIST, C-States, C1E, Turbo).
Set PCI-E frequency to 100.
Manually set volatges to default values (Vcore, VTT, PCH, PLL, DIMM).
Change BCLK to 160 and multi to 20 (3.2GHz).
Check RAM divider is set to run your RAM within limits.
Boot and stress test using prime, IBT or whichever you like.
If it's unstable increase Vcore a notch or two and try again. If it's stable you can either leave it as it is or try decreasing the Vcore if you want to stick at 3.2GHz. If you fancy pushing for more increase BLCK a bit at a time and retest increasing Vcore a bit when failing. You will need to raise VTT a tad when you start getting high up.
I'm currently running my i5 at 3.99GHz (190x21) with EIST, C1E and Turbo on. Only voltages I have had to change are Vcore 1.325v and VTT 1.175v. Since I have speedstep and c1e on the Vcore drops to around 1.07v when idle or under low load.