Avidya

(“lack of [true] knowledge”) Avidya is
the absence of true understanding
and is the fundamental problem in
almost all Hindu philosophical and
religious thought. The presence of
avidya leads people to misperceive the
true nature of reality and to act based on
these misperceptions.
The most fundamental of these false
perceptions is to identify the eternal Self
(atman) with the body. As a result of this
misidentification, egoism leads one to
try to protect and advance the Self (in its
particular embodied state) and incites
feelings and actions of greed, lust, and
hatred. These feelings create bondage
for the soul and entrap it in samsara, the
cycle of rebirth.
In most Hindu philosophical
schools, the avidya tends to be conceived in epistemological rather than
metaphysical terms—that is, it is not an
actual thing in its own right but exists
as a function of how one comes to
know things, insofar as that knowledge
is inaccurate or incomplete. Once one’s
deficient awareness has been corrected,
the cause of bondage is removed,
resulting in the final liberation of the
soul (moksha).