Spring has org.springframework.core.io.Resource which is designed for such situations. From context.xml you can pass classpath to the bean
<bean class="test.Test1">
<property name="path" value="classpath:/test/test1.xml" />
</bean>
and you get it in your bean as Resource:
public void setPath(Resource path) throws IOException {
File file = path.getFile();
System.out.println(file);
}
output
D:\workspace1\spring\target\test-classes\test\test1.xml
Now you can use it in new FileReader(file)