With the directory on the classpath, from a class loaded by the same classloader, you should be able to use either of:

// From ClassLoader, all paths are "absolute" already - there's no context
// from which they could be relative. Therefore you don't need a leading slash.
InputStream in = this.getClass().getClassLoader()
                                .getResourceAsStream("SomeTextFile.txt");
// From Class, the path is relative to the package of the class unless
// you include a leading slash, so if you don't want to use the current
// package, include a slash like this:
InputStream in = this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("/SomeTextFile.txt");

If those aren't working, that suggests something else is wrong.

So for example, take this code:

package dummy;

import java.io.*;

public class Test
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        InputStream stream = Test.class.getResourceAsStream("/SomeTextFile.txt");
        System.out.println(stream != null);
        stream = Test.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("SomeTextFile.txt");
        System.out.println(stream != null);
    }
}

And this directory structure:

code
    dummy
          Test.class
txt
    SomeTextFile.txt

And then (using the Unix path separator as I'm on a Linux box):

java -classpath code:txt dummy.Test

Results:

true
true

You cant refer the file from jar the way you do it in from resources. Since the file is packaged inside the jar you need to read it as resource. You have to read the file as resource using classloader.

sample code:

ClassLoader CLDR = this.getClass().getClassLoader();
InputStream inputStream = CLDR.getResourceAsStream(filePath);

If you are using java 8 and above then you can use below code using nio to read your file:

final Path path = Paths.get(Main.class.getResource(fileName).toURI());
final byte[] bytes = Files.readAllBytes(path);
String fileContent = new String(bytes, CHARSET_ASCII);

Try getting hold of a URL for your classpath resource:

URL url = this.getClass().getResource("/com/path/to/file.txt")

Then create a file using the constructor that accepts a URI:

File file = new File(url.toURI());