Class.getResource
can take a "relative" resource name, which is treated relative to the class's package. Alternatively you can specify an "absolute" resource name by using a leading slash. Classloader resource paths are always deemed to be absolute.
So the following are basically equivalent:
foo.bar.Baz.class.getResource("xyz.txt");
foo.bar.Baz.class.getClassLoader().getResource("foo/bar/xyz.txt");
And so are these (but they're different from the above):
foo.bar.Baz.class.getResource("/data/xyz.txt");
foo.bar.Baz.class.getClassLoader().getResource("data/xyz.txt");