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Devotion
This image is named "Devotion". The woman is bowing to the sacred hill, Arunachala, that rises above the Sri Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India. Also pictured here are the steps leading to the temples of the ashram, with the inevitable collection of shoes.
Unlike the long and arduous struggle of Siddhartha (who became the Buddha), Ramana came to Self realization as a young man spontaneously, "sitting alone in a room on the first floor of his uncle's house" in Madurai". Anybody who wonders about Enlightenment might consider studying the life and teachings of Ramana Maharshi, as well as the life of the Buddha.
There are widely different ideas about what enlightenment is and how it is attained. Some think enlightenment is a constant state of consciousness that takes many lifetimes of purification to achieve . Some claim that we are already fully enlightened, but need to clear our obscurations and karmic faults to realize our true nature which is possible even in this lifetime.
The turning point in Siddhartha's quest for enlightenment apparently came when he remembered the bliss he had spontaneously experienced sitting under a rose apple tree as a young boy. Up to this point he had fasted himself almost to death to purify himself somehow, but now realized that the clarification of his own body and mind by meditative absorption would be the path to his enlightenment. "...he would need physical strength and better health to continue..." At this point, Siddhartha also realized his path to awakening was a "middle way" between extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence." He had, in fact, left his palace and gone searching in the jungle for the "Great Awakened Elephant of Enlightenment", and found, in stead, the rather humble "Middle Way".
Now you may wonder what all this has to do with devotion? To understand this question fully, it is important to recognize that devotion does not seem to be well understood in two ways. First, devotion is unquestionably one of the most potent of spiritual realities know to our world, and second; that it can not only clear one's path to any heaven in our universe, but just as readily speed the devotee into the realms of hell.
The Buddha's accomplishment is that he discovered-created that which is worthy of devotion.