Yes and no: everyone has a certain karmic given, but through their own effort, spiritual practice and service a person can go beyond the bounds of their destiny.
Yes and no.
No, because there is a certain karmic given
According to the philosophy of yoga, there is a law of cause and effect: everything has a cause, and every cause has an effect.
The scenery of life varies: events can take place in Russia, in France, in America, even on the Moon (someday, surely). But the essence does not change — a person is destined to go through a certain amount of pain and pleasure caused by their past actions.
Every action can be neutral, black or white. It depends on which guna it was done in. From the energy of goodness a person radiates joy and brings pleasure to the world; from the energy of ignorance, suffering and pain.
Every reaction of the mind is a kind of wave, a distortion, which the mind strives to even out and correct. And it can be corrected only by going through a similar action. When we meet a pleasant situation, we are correcting the consequences of pleasant actions, and vice versa.
Yet by their own effort a person can change their destiny
At the beginning of life a person has not even the slightest control over destiny. Lacking awareness, they move blindly along a trajectory.
Very rare people understand what is right and what is not, and are ready to go against their surroundings and circumstances. This means that the person's consciousness has already risen, has evolved.
There is conscience in them — the guiding factor in life. And such a person can change their destiny through effort. Once they have realized the need to do spiritual practice, they can change not only themselves but the whole trajectory of their family line.
The people close to them cannot stay the same, because they see the example. Sooner or later the seeds of goodness will outweigh the dark energy (tamas).
And then the person not only comes out from under the power of their A reaction of a past action waiting in the mind to be lived through; what people often call fate. but also leads the whole family out from under their influence. However, this does not free them from having to go through the pain and pleasure they are destined to "work off."
Until a person has lived through them, deep understanding will not come. Superficial understanding is at the level of the intellect. But resolve — "no, I will not act this way," or the reverse, "from now on I will act only this way" — lies at a deep level. When such understanding comes, consciousness expands.
To go beyond the bounds of one's destiny, one has to expand one's consciousness
Imagine a room that has boundaries. These are the boundaries of a person's mind. They are drawn by past actions, by saḿskáras. In essence this is destiny, and an ordinary person cannot go beyond it. But when one begins to do spiritual practice, consciousness expands at an accelerated pace. In meditation the mind grows and evolves until it runs into the boundaries the mind has set, and then it begins to overcome them.
The path of working off old karma can be pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the actions done in the past. While pleasant actions are being worked off, there are pleasant experiences; while negative ones are being worked off, there are painful experiences that bring various clouds of gloom.
And then it begins to seem to the person that they were better before they started meditating. Many get frightened by this and stop doing spiritual practice. They go back into their usual frame, where everything is familiar, easy and clear.
The choice, of course, always rests with each person.
This is the natural process of learning through pain and pleasure. As we go through them, we realize and absorb something.
And there is a supernatural process of learning — when a person moves consciously. They strive to understand, are ready to look into things, want to come out from under the influence of their ego, their "I want / I don't want," and to live an ideal life in harmony with consciousness.
Such a person is guided by the voice of their conscience, or by the voice of their teacher. The teacher gives direction, says how to act, and deep inside the person knows that the teacher's words are the truth they have always understood.
When you are guided by the teacher, you begin to hear yourself and your conscience better. From that moment the person is beyond the bounds of their destiny. The pain and pleasure that come today have to be lived through. But now one does not need to suffer so much to learn one's lesson — it is already being learned.
And then support comes from above. When this happens, karma is reset to zero and destroyed. If such a person is an ideal student, the path of working off karma is passed much more easily: it is enough simply to come to the lesson, and everything is already marked "automatically."
In the life of a spiritual seeker there is a very powerful factor: the support of the grace of the Supreme Consciousness.
Today's pain and pleasure are a given. But how to live through that pain and pleasure is the person's choice.
For example, if there is a karma to be beaten, it can be fulfilled in different ways, depending on the path a person is following. It is one thing to be beaten in a dark alley while walking home drunk, and another to be attacked while among activists who have come out to defend animals or the environment. The action is the same, the pain is the same, but the future is different.
The present is to some extent determined by our past, but the future is always open
The simplest way to begin changing your destiny is to start meditating and also to do things for the good of all beings. This will surely change the trajectory of a spiritual seeker's destiny for the better.
Pain and pleasure are a given. A person has to decide what future they will make out of it. Will they be left with something sour, or will they manage to make lemonade for themselves and for humanity? Destiny is in our hands!