Moksha
The Hindu term for liberation — release from the cycle of birth and rebirth and the ignorance that sustains it.
Moksha is the Sanskrit word for liberation or release, used in Hindu and Jain philosophy for the highest goal of human life: the release of the self from the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara) and from the ignorance, craving, and karmic conditioning that sustain it. Different schools of Indian philosophy give moksha different content.
For Advaita Vedanta, articulated most systematically by Adi Shankara, moksha consists in the recognition that the individual self (atman) is identical with the absolute (Brahman): liberation is not an event in time but the realization of what is always already the case, dispelling the cosmic illusion (maya) that produced the appearance of separation. For Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, moksha is the eternal devotional relation of the individual soul to a personal God. For Yoga and Samkhya, moksha is the discrimination of the conscious self (purusha) from the field of materiality (prakriti). The differences run deep, but the term names the same direction of philosophical aspiration across the traditions.