Avidya — The Root Ignorance
Avidya (not-knowing, ignorance of Brahman) is the root cause of all bondage and suffering in Advaita Vedanta — not ignorance of facts but the fundamental misidentification of the Atman with the body-mind.
Avidya (ignorance — literally 'not-knowledge') is the most fundamental concept in Advaita's analysis of the human predicament. Avidya is not ignorance of facts or information but the fundamental misidentification of the Atman (infinite consciousness) with the Anatman (not-self — the body, mind, and ego). This is sometimes called Adhyasa (superimposition) — the mistaken attribution of the properties of one thing to another, like seeing a ghost in a dark post. When Atman is superimposed on the body-mind (and vice versa), the result is the ordinary sense of being a limited, mortal, vulnerable individual — which generates all suffering, striving, and seeking. Avidya is beginningless (it has no temporal start) but has an end (it ceases with Brahma Jnana). Shankara's crucial insight: Avidya is not logical error (a reasoning mistake) but perceptual/experiential error — it cannot be corrected by argument alone but only by direct experience of Brahman (Aparoksha Anubhuti — immediate experience).
Avidya is the seed of all bondage. Brahma Jnana is its fire. When that fire burns, the seed is destroyed and liberation is immediate.
Philosopher Thomas Nagel's 'Mortal Questions' explores the gap between the objective third-person view of the self (as a biological organism) and the subjective first-person experience of being a self — the Advaita concept of Avidya names the mechanism that creates this gap: the confusion of the objective body with the subjective Atman.
Vivekachudamani