The Parable of the Monkey

"Have you heard about the monkey?
One monkey had many names. She boasted of them, trying on various masks. But one day a storm caught her unawares.
She was forced to find shelter. But where she sought lodging, among acquaintances, they would not take her in.
'Why?'
'You see, she had deceived herself and everyone around her so much with her multiplicity that they did not recognize her true self, because they had never known her that way.
Each of those acquaintances had seen her in a particular single guise in which she had appeared to them, and they remembered her that way. When rain, tempest, bad weather overtook her, tearing off her clothes and washing every image from her, no one recognized her true face.
'And why didn't they simply let the stranger in?'
'That is another parable, and about something else. That parable is about the callousness of the soul in moments when its true meaning is revealed.
They showed cowardice, I will not hide it.
'But what happened to the monkey? Did she disappear?'
'No, do not grieve for that. When her last hope remained, the one who opened the door to her, she said nothing; she bowed her eyes in submission and asked forgiveness for her deceit, for that innocent joke that might have cost her her life.
And then the kind host let her in.
Not as the one he had known, but as the one he had come to know anew.
This parable teaches respect, first and foremost respect for oneself, for who you are, whom you see, not for whom you show to others.
In deceiving others, it is very easy to deceive yourself.'"