A person who begins to feel tranquil must attempt to create a crisis in order to extricate himself from that tranquil state.
A person can enter Gehenna in one leap or slip slowly into it.
Rabbi Simha Bunim of Peshisha once said that every person must see himself as if his head is laid on the executioner’s block with Satan standing over him holding an axe to his neck.
It is told that one of Rabbi Simha Bunim’s students asked him, “What happens when a person is unable to see himself in this way?”
Rabbi Bunim answered, “It is a sign that Satan has already beheaded him.”
When a person feels that his world is straight and smooth, that there is no challenge to rising in the morning for prayers or to making blessings before and after eating, or to designating specific times for Torah study, when a person feels that he has no more obstacles on the path to holiness, this is a decisive sign that he is lost.
It is indicative that there are no longer any obstacles on his path to Gehenna.
If he wants to prevent that outcome, he must take drastic steps.
He must undertake to do more.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz