FALSE IDENTIFICATION

Ignorance, according to Patanjali, is false identification.  We identify with the non-Atman, i.e. the world of the senses, rather than with the Atman.  This basic act of ignorance leads automatically and promptly to millions of acts by us just like it.  When we ignore the Atman within us, we ignore it everywhere, so that rather than seeing the universe as unity, we see it as multiplicity.  It is not multiplicity.