reading .xml files through InputStream

hi
i m using JBuilderX... the problem i m facing is very childish yet i
could'nt find the sol...i m retrieving the contents of an xml file
using

 InputStream is = another_class.getResourceInputStream("log4j.XML");

another_class:-

protected static InputStream getResourceInputStream(String xml_file)
      throws IOException {
    System.out.println(xml_file) ;
      ClassLoader cl = ResourceManager.class.getClassLoader();
      return cl.getResourceAsStream(xml_file);
      }
 the code is fine but it cant get the xyz.xml file..and it returns
NULL.
i have used every option... i want to keep the file in a separate
directory in project files say  dir1 .... what should i give in the
path... how can i get the path of that file as a pert of my
program...?
thanks a lot