I tried to post this about 3 hours ago but for some odd ‘hesitation’ with the Site, it did not go through. I am trying again now ( I kept a copy):
Hello there Lucas,
I take “many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion” as an indication of the time that has elapsed, the time it took for the bhikkhu to go through all those lives – that is, in aeon after aeon, not in just one.
As to your last para, I too see that ‘transferring’ to another planetary system should be no problem for the mind. Say one still needs experience from a human world, but he does not ‘fit in’anymore with the state of that humanity at that time. But this is not connected with the destruction of any planet in any way. It may also happen the other way around. There would be some here who are ‘not of this planet’. The Buddha SAW the inevitable transference to higher realms only following the destruction of the planet.